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James Ferguson heads up
a division at NETL
“We’re reducing our dependence on oil, cutting air emissions, creating green jobs and helping the country
get back on its feet,” he says with pleasure
 James Ferguson wants to see more African American engineers take advantage of the exciting and growing opportunities working for the federal government in the energy field. He did it himself, and dove into what he loves best: solving problems using technical and engineering principles.
Ferguson is working at the Department of Energy (DOE, Washington, DC) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL, Pittsburgh, PA and Morgantown, WV) as director of the buildings and efficiency technologies division. He oversees partnerships with researchers finding ways to make homes, businesses and facilities greener.
Exciting projects
But it worries him that so few African Americans seem to be informed about his line of work. “I think a lot of new technical grads are more drawn to the private sector and higher starting salaries. But I also think there’s a lack of awareness about what the federal government is doing. We have some exciting projects going on!”
NETL is the only government-owned, government-operated national lab for the DOE. Some 1,200 employees, including about 600 contractors, work there on advanced energy technologies. “We call ourselves the Energy Lab, and we try to provide solutions to the world’s energy problems,” Ferguson declares with emphasis.
The three primary R&D sites are Morgantown, WV; Pittsburgh, PA and Albany, OR. Ferguson’s group is based in NETL’s project management center in Pittsburgh and Morgantown, which supports the DOE office of energy efficiency and renewable energy.
“We work on a variety of advanced building technologies, from residential buildings to commercial buildings to advanced lighting and windows: the whole gamut,” Ferguson says. “We look at the individual components of a building like windows and lighting, but we also look at everything as a system that needs to work together in the most efficient manner to reduce energy consumption.”
The team concerns itself not only with energy consumption, but also with gases within buildings and coming from buildings. “We want to make the buildings more livable, the folks inside more comfortable, and improve the air quality,” Ferguson says.
Managing the partners
Most of Ferguson’s staff members are project managers, including engineers and other techies as well as physical scientists. They don’t do hands-on engineering, but manage the partners who receive financial assistance awards: private industry, research institutions, universities, state and local governments and nonprofits.
“The job of our staff is to manage the projects so they’re on schedule, within budget, completed successfully and, of course, within the boundaries of what the applicants originally said they’d do,” Ferguson notes.
Stimulus funding
A current priority concerns the funding his team has received under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the stimulus package. Solicitations are flowing in for projects to advance green building technologies.
“The President is promoting not only recovery but the green jobs industry as well,” Ferguson notes. “We’re helping to train building operators, technicians and auditors to make sure there’s a new generation of experts to maintain these buildings once the changes are incorporated.”
Right now Ferguson has sixteen permanent employees in his division. He wants to hire six to ten more just to work on Recovery Act priorities. There are about 200 active projects to manage.
“Active and engaged”
Ferguson says he tries to be “an active and engaged communicator. We want employees and colleagues to know what’s going on and expected of them and have the tools to be successful. It’s my job to be a leader.”
Ferguson has always been in government service. After high school he was in the Army from 1982 to 1984, then in the National Guard until 1991. After the Army he went to Temple University (Philadelphia, PA) for his 1988 BSME.
One of his most interesting courses was “operations research,” which gave him the idea to pursue a career applying engineering principles to business problems. He got his MBA in 1990, also from Temple.
Interning with Naval Air Warfare
After Ferguson got his BS he interned with the Department of the Navy’s Naval Air Warfare Center (Warminster, PA). The work included trips to the Pentagon to make presentations to admirals. He stayed on as an ops research analyst, studying the effectiveness of anti-submarine-warfare systems against possible enemy subs. “There were certainly engineering principles involved, but it was more analytical skills and problem solving,” he says.
On board at the DOE
In 1994 the lab moved to Patuxent River, MD. Ferguson and his wife had just bought a house in Philadelphia and didn’t want to move, so he came on board at the Department of Energy. He started as a project manager and general engineer and moved up to team leader in 1996. In 2001 he became deputy director of the office with twenty-five people under him.
“It was a wider variety of projects than I have now: all types of energy technologies including wind, solar, buildings and geothermal,” he says.
The office was consolidated into NETL in 2005, and Ferguson moved from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, PA the next year. He got his acting director job in 2008 and segued to director status in 2009.
His staff is working hard, sometimes twelve- to sixteen-hour days to keep up with the Recovery Act. Ferguson says he’s proud of the way his people have banded together. “We know how important it is to get back on a good economic footing. We get a lot of satisfaction out of our jobs, knowing we’re reducing our dependence on oil, reducing air emissions, creating green jobs and helping the country get back on its feet,” he says.
“I love my job. I really do. I feel good coming to work every day!”
D/C
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